Ebola Rates Down in Liberia, Outbreak Still Raging in Sierra Leone, Guinea

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The number of deaths from the Ebola virus in West Africa is still rising, but the rate of infections is decreasing in Liberia, one of the hardest hit West African nations.

The number
of Ebola deaths in West Africa has climbed to 5,420, but there is encouraging
news in Liberia.

The New York Times reports that Dr. Thomas R. Frieden,
the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a
press call that the international response to West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, as
well as action by local communities, has stopped the exponential spread of the
virus in Liberia.

“There’s
been a substantial change in the trend. There is no longer exponential increase;
in fact, there’s been a decrease in the rate of infections in Liberia,” said
Frieden, during a call with reporters.

Health
officials are still concerned about the rate of infections in Guinea and Sierra
Leone. More than 500 new cases and 63 deaths were reported in Sierra Leone last
week alone.

Frieden is calling
for increased international aid, particularly from Britain, to decrease the
numbers in Sierra Leone.

Ebola Takes a Heavy Toll on Healthcare Workers

Dr. Martin
Salia, a surgeon who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and was transported to
Nebraska Medical Center, died Monday, despite heroic attempts to save his life.
Salia is the second Ebola patient to die in the United States. Thomas Eric
Duncan, a Liberian man, died in October after being diagnosed at Texas Health
Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

Salia was
reportedly unconscious, his kidneys had failed, and he was having trouble
breathing by the time he got to Nebraska Medical Center, where a team had
successfully treated Ebola patients Dr. Rick Sacra and NBC journalist Ashoka
Mukpo.

Dr. Moses
Kargbo, a retired medical officer in Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health, who had
volunteered at a government hospital in the central Tonkolili district, also recently
died from Ebola.

Felix Baez,
a Cuban doctor working in Sierra Leone, who was flown to Switzerland on Friday for
treatment at University Hospital of Geneva, was reported to be in stable
condition.

The Times of
India reported that a 26-year-old Indian who was treated and cured of Ebola
virus disease in Liberia has been quarantined at the Delhi airport's health
facility after having tested positive twice. Although his blood samples were
repeatedly found to be free of Ebola, the virus showed up in his semen.

Some Good News…

A Reuters
report said that two travelers who returned recently from West Africa tested
negative for Ebola yesterday at hospitals in New York and Missouri. They will
stay under observation while awaiting additional confirmation of the results,
health officials said.

In a
separate development, a woman who died of an apparent heart attack at a
Brooklyn, New York hair salon and who had come to the United States almost
three weeks ago from Guinea, tested negative for the virus.

…But a Hefty Price Tag

According to
an NBC report, the tab for treating two Ebola patients at the University of
Nebraska’s Medical Center (UNMC) topped $1 million. Ten patients have been
treated in the United States at UNMC, Emory University Hospital in Atlanta,
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, the National Institutes of Health
in Maryland, and Bellevue Hospital in New York.

In testimony
at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight
subcommittee, Dr. Jeffrey Gold, UNMC’s chancellor, urged Congress to approve
funding and policies for full reimbursement of these costs. “These are patients
that federal government directed to UNMC and Emory,” said Gold.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama
made his pitch to top health officials this week for his previously proposed
$6.2 billion in funding to combat Ebola, saying that future risks can be
minimized if Congress acts now. "We are nowhere near out of the woods yet
in West Africa," Obama said.

Officials also announced that citizens of
Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone currently in the United States will be
allowed to remain and apply for Temporary Protected Status for 18 months
because of the Ebola crisis.